


The Most Hypocritical Fear

by inK_AddicTion



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Again, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Ridiculousness, Winter Wonderland, bit of blacksand, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3400868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inK_AddicTion/pseuds/inK_AddicTion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crack!ish drabble in which Jack Frost severely underestimates Sandy. And Pitch tries his best. Ultimately, it was all Frost's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Hypocritical Fear

It had been a week since Jack had comforted Sandy after Pitch's very strange revelations about his past glories, his motive for which Jack still didn't quite understand. Perhaps he just wanted to brag, but Jack doubted it, somehow. On the nights afterward, Jack had been wary of leaving Sandy alone, despite the little Guardian's assurances, and had continued to stick with him on his constant chase after night around the globe, leaving kids iced-up windows and snowdrifts as he went.

They were currently floating over the Atlantic Ocean on a warm, rolling dreamsand bier, underneath which fantastic shapes contorted and writhed that Jack loved to watch. Far, far below, the occasional mermaid broke the surface to wave up at the passing dreamcloud, a salute Sandy never failed to return. Above, the eye of the moon smiled down warmly at the two Guardians, it's winking gaze broken only by the few seabirds that still winged this far out, albatrosses with wingspans longer than Jack's outstretched arms, and one very lost seagull Sandy had taken pity on and knocked out to rest atop a cruise boat.

It was a warm and balmy night, uncomfortable for Jack, who could feel sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. The heat made him feel sluggish and tired, and on thought, the presence of the Guardian of Dreams and his sand was hardly helping. Sandy was not known for making people feel energetic, after all.

Jack yawned, then hid it quickly behind a smile that flashed every pearly white, hoping to distract his companion enough for the Guardian to not notice. Unfortunately, said Guardian was not Tooth, and Sandy was far less swayed by the sight of Jack's teeth.

He gestured down at the dreamcloud invitingly, with a warm smile that Jack couldn't help but return. An image of a sleeping Jack appeared above his head.

"I'm okay," Jack insisted, "it's just this heat." He grimaced. "It makes me feel like I'm melting." He rolled dramatically onto his back and threw his arm over his eyes as if he were swooning. He couldn't fall asleep in front of Sandy, his dreams had to be kept secret. Sandy couldn't know his secret.

Sandy's round frame shook in a silent chuckle, and with a tinkle of dreamsand he formed a large golden feather, mockingly fanning him with it. Jack sighed, Sandy's efforts really were conjuring up a small breeze, no doubt helped along by Wind.

"Keep doing that, little man," Jack requested, stretching out languidly. He closed his eyes.

The soft, silky yet still somehow gritty feeling of dreamsand flowing over his skin made him quickly open them again as Sandy, grinning, created an elegant golden crown on Jack's head, complete with a golden medallion of office around his neck. When he saw Jack looking at him, his grin abruptly showed more teeth and he swept into as deep a bow as he could manage, almost kneeling, dropping his eyes from Jack's demurely. A flurry of images appeared above his head that Jack took to mean,  _'Your wish is my command, your majesty.'_

Jack felt his cheeks immediately chill as he flushed, sputtering into a laugh. "Sandy-!" Sometimes he honestly wondered  _what_ the Moon had been thinking when he picked  _Sandy_ to watch over children's dreams. Wasn't there something about young impressionable minds-?

 _Yes sir?_ read the symbols, and with such perfect innocence it could only be fake, Sandy peeked up at him shyly from underneath his lashes, his every movement the respectful subject, but his eyes glittering with such mischievous promise Jack felt a drop of sweat roll down the back of his neck.

Uncomfortable and wrong-footed by Sandy's blatant innuendo, something Jack didn't quite know how to deal with (the Sandman was about as subtle as a freight train) he found himself coughing awkwardly and looking away. Was he  _flirting_ with him, or was Jack just completely misreading this...? Had Sandy somehow found out what Jack thought about him, the dark, longing thoughts of touches a bit  _more_ than a friendly hug, ceaseless imaginations of what golden dreamsand would look like mixed with swirling patterns of frost across soft skin, thoughts Jack had taken special care to bury deep inside himself and  _never_ allow himself to ponder unless he was freshly rested and far away?

 _Don't be ridiculous,_ he told himself sternly,  _the heat's affecting your mind. It's just a joke, you know those? Fun? Yeah, the thing you're supposed to be_ Guardian  _of?_

"Hilarious," he quipped dryly, and perhaps Sandy sensed his internal conflict, because his smile lost some of it's toothiness. He withdrew his sand with a bright, reassuring smile at Jack, forming it instead into a dreamsand dolphin, which jumped playfully around the lost winter spirit.

Unable to look at the Sandman, Jack fought to repress the sudden thoughts that Sandy's teasing had unexpectedly provoked. He felt shame settle heavily in his stomach.

What sort of deviant was he, to want to do  _things_ of that nature with sweet, gentle Sandy, Sandy who was almost childlike in his happiness? It wasn't...normal. Sandy was one of his very few treasured friends, and Jack knew he couldn't approach the gentle dreamweaver with his perversion. Even...even if Sandy did, somehow, return the sentiments- Jack felt his cheeks immediately blaze with a thick curling of frost- which was impossible anyway, he added swiftly, Jack had heard plenty of horror stories over his three hundred years of friends becoming...lovers and then it ruining their friendship.

He didn't want that. He'd rather have Sandy as his friend and keep his unnatural urges where they belonged- deep inside a locked box. Besides, as childlike as the Sandman appeared (and didn't that just make Jack's perversion even more mental) he was still many, many thousands of years older than Jack. For all Jack knew, Sandy already had someone in some sort on-and-off immortal relationship. That is, if he was even  _interested_ in things of that nature, which considering he wasn't even human...especially with Jack, who was always cold and frostbitten, a reanimated corpse.

The thick, heavy feeling of self-hate was only growing worse, reaching oily tendrils into his stomach to make him feel dizzy and sick. He swallowed, stood up and grabbed his staff in one quick movement. He ran his hand savagely through his white hair, damp with melting ice.

"I'm going to..." he gestured vaguely off the dreamsand cloud, and prayed Sandy wouldn't question him. "This heat, huh?" he let out a short bark of forced laughter which sounded all wrong. Jack winced. He was no good at lying.

Sandy gave him a concerned look, moving towards him with hands slightly outstretched as if he intended to take Jack's own. The thought of  _touching_ Sandy was enough to send Jack into a flurry of panic, and he leapt away so quickly he almost tripped over his own feet. Jack gripped his staff tightly across his body as if he was preparing to defend himself, and his eyes when they looked down at Sandy were wide and hunted.

Sandy's shoulders slumped, and Jack felt terrible for the flash of hurt and bewilderment Sandy couldn't quite hide before he saw it. Bravely the little dreamweaver mustered a smile that seemed almost real, and waved a little too brightly before he turned back to the approaching smudge of land, forming dreams.

Jack forced himself to take off and whip away in the opposite direction before he could run to Sandy and engulf him in a hug, a hug like the one they had shared on the starry night Sandy finally faced his grief and Jack had held him in his arms, close to his body, all night. Before he could plead for Sandy's forgiveness, do something he really regretted, like  _kiss_ him.

Jack felt caught out, a rat in a trap, under a spotlight. His skin felt itchy and too small, and he felt uncomfortably warm and cold in places he really would rather not. The wind buffeted him in a friendly manner, but Jack was blind to it's joy, and rode silently, a passenger.

The Wind was displeased with this, normally her boy was much more fun. Perhaps he was too hot, he liked the cold, he always smiled when he saw snow. Decision made, the Wind whisked her boy off to Antarctica, the domain of sulking ice spirits since it had first capped the planet.

Jack was thoroughly preoccupied with his thoughts. He couldn't believe he had messed up so badly. Now Sandy was going to be upset with him, maybe he'd ignore Jack, and he was deserved to do so, after all, Jack dreamt of doing horrible things, evil things that would put Pitch to shame. (After all, a nightmare arrow hardly fazed Sandy at all.)

Why Sandy?! Why of all the spirits- why the Sandman, sweet, huggable bringer of good dreams? (Albeit, huggable bringer of good dreams who threw the Boogeyman about like a ragdoll when those dreams were threatened and vaporised countless nightmares with a touch. (scary and awesome)) Why couldn't Jack have fixated his weird urges on...on Tooth, hell,  _Pitch_ would have been a better choice. If only from the sheer impossibility of it, there was literally no point of Jack hoping for a relationship  _there,_ the guy was not only mentally unstable in the extreme, but also apparently had numerous split personalities. Who argued.  _All the time._

But try as he might, Jack was unable to stop remembering the softness of Sandy's body nestled snugly against his own, his tiny hot hands clutching the front of Jack's hoodie, his air-kissed hair gentle and brushing like silk against Jack's pale cheek, the comforting weight of him, the giving plushness of his flesh against Jack's thin cold frame. The  _heat_ of him, demanding and powerful like a supernova, oh, how would that heat would feel on his lips, under his hands, around his cock...? Would Sandy bite his lip, give him that look, all soft and wide and startled but with a dark edge of curious  _hunger-_

Jack shook himself. "You're sick!" he shouted. His cry echoed in the white silence, and Jack finally took sight of his surroundings. He was alone on a flat plain of snow, above and before him, he could see a familiar jagged snow cliff rising, crowned with dark frost spikes. He clenched his jaw at the sight of it, at the reminder of Pitch's offer.

The frost spirit angrily threw a shaft of ice towards the spikes, but it only shattered on impact, his and Pitch's combined power proving too strong for Jack to destroy on his own. He didn't want to  _see_ it anymore!

With a frustrated growl, he whirled around and stomped away, his power fizzing out into the ground. Worriedly, the Wind whistled around him, her plan appeared to have backfired. Her boy was angrier than ever!

Jack breathed in deeply and released it in a long sigh. "Sorry," he muttered to the wind, then turned to see what havoc he'd wreaked.

He jumped about ten feet in the air when he saw a very surprised fear spirit staring back at him, wide-eyed and shaking slightly. Pitch was very pale, and his round quicksilver eyes were fixed on Jack. Every so often, his mouth opened and closed mutely.

"What are you doing here?" Jack demanded. He was in no mood to deal with Pitch.

"I could ask you the same!" came the hissed response, "here I was, admiring the silence, until  _you_ drop out of the sky, insult me, and nearly cut me in half!"

"Ah," said Jack awkwardly. "Um. That wasn't actually meant for you."

"Good to know," Pitch snarled, drawing himself up like an offended peacock. The Nightmare King looked out of place in the extreme, a spot of darkness surrounded by soft white, a monochrome picture cut and pasted from some dark-half nightmare, half-daydream. Shadows writhed hungrily around his stiff frame, all gaping mouths and glaring little yellow eyes, swaying towards Jack with longing clawed fingers. As if he had just noticed them, Pitch stepped back once, an oddly tight expression flashing across his hollow face. Suddenly, he paused, and then his eyes fluttered shut and he inhaled, as if he had just caught scent of the most heavenly aroma.

Jack stared at him, distracted from his own problems by Pitch's weirdness. Not for the first time, he wished the spirit world had the nice doctors in white that carted away crazy people, he figured Pitch could probably do with some help.

Pitch's eyes snapped open, and they were a dark gold. The shadows rolling off him increased tenfold, and he straightened proudly, a familiar cold expression settling over his stone-grey features. He quirked a brow at Jack, "Well," he hummed smoothly, "I must say, that  _more_ than made up for it." A smirk curled his thin lips, and he stalked closer to Jack, until he was uncomfortably close, so close that their chests were almost touching. "Your fear is especially  _decadent_ today, Frost," the shade purred.

"My  _what-_ look," Jack stumbled back swiftly, deeply alarmed, "what the hell is wrong with you?"

Contemplatively, Pitch summoned a small swirl of black sand, which he played his long grey fingers through teasingly. The dark grains swirled caressingly against their master's skin. "Sand is so versatile, isn't it, Jack?" Pitch murmured, his voice low and dark, glancing at the winter spirit under hooded eyes.

A horrified thrill ran through Jack's body, lighting up every nerve.  _He knows, he knows, oh god, he knows, how does he know?_ Pitch's presence was doing nothing to dispel the fear that suddenly gripped Jack's soul with icy claws. The fearlings at Pitch's feet extended towards the winter spirit sneakily, they slipped inside his shadow. Jack began to breathe quickly, a sign of an impending panic attack.

"Your fear," Pitch breathed. He allowed his head to fall back with a luxurious sigh, as if he were bathing in a pool of dark, succulent chocolate only he could see.

 _He's going to tell him, this is_ Pitch,  _all the Guardians will know what a monster I am, everything, oh god, Sandy will know-_ Jack's thoughts were beginning to fly out of control, whirling like hornets in his head, sharp and tearing. He was sucking at air desperately now, but it felt as if an iron band was constricting around his throat,  _he was drowning-!_

" _Jack...!_ " Pitch's voice cracked, dropped into a indrawn moan.

_-he's going to hate me, they'll all hate me, I'll be alone again, they'll kick me out of the Guardians-_

Pitch gasped for breath as if he was running a marathon, his yellow eyes very wide, his hand pressed against his sternum, swaying where he stood. " _Stop,"_ he commanded harshly,  _"leave the boy alone."_

Jack shook. He could feel something scraping at his brain, and his stomach clenched angrily, threatening to make him throw up. The anxiety and fear was a sharp electric presence in his veins.

The fear spirit staggered. He grabbed at the darkening air with a clawed hand and hissed something powerful, and just like that- it was gone.

Heart still beating a rabbit's pace against his ribs, Jack blinked up at Pitch, wondering when he had fallen over. The Nightmare King stared back at him, equally wide-eyed, struggling to master himself. His eyes were a brighter gold than Jack had ever seen them before, and his skin had a darker than ash tint.

"Didn't they tell you..." Pitch rasped, "That aggressively feeling a spirit's element in their presence  _has an effect,_  you little _fool_!?"

"...no?" Jack offered in a small voice.

" _Stars,"_ Pitch groaned. He looked wrecked. His skin was flushed purple, a lock of salt and pepper dark hair had fallen across his forehead. He took in a shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and held it for a moment. When he released it, a change seemed to come from within, and the tension smoothed out of his muscles and his expression settled. Jack unconsciously let out a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. Pitch was back in control of his power, and not the other way around.

"Next time," he muttered to himself, "next time, it won't be me. He'll feel indescribably hopeful. Or an immense sense of wonder. Sweet galaxies, he could even have a very intense dream for all I care, that would cheerfully solve two problems in one." He glared up at the sky.  _"Guardians."_

"Frost," Pitch began, looking down at him with an infinitely patronising look, "Surely you have noticed that when around Sanderson- the creampuff," he added, as if Jack had forgotten who 'Sanderson' was - "people sleep better? Equally, in my presence, you will be more prone to fear and nightmares. This holds true for all spirits. When in a spirit's presence, the emotion they are associated with- no Frost, not every spirit is tied to an emotion-creates a feedback loop which they will then feed off, like a symbiote. So, for example, when you race in here and begin feeling very scared before my starved fearlings, they will feed off you. In return, your fear will worsen. For most spirits, their reaction will be the same, or very similar to mine."

Jack felt frost curl up his cheeks. He imagined Sandy, looking at him like Pitch had, flushed and panting.

Pitch scowled at him, his hairless brows knitting tightly. "Despite the fact that your fear is quite possibly the most ridiculous I have ever encountered. Fear that Sanderson will not accept you for being depraved-! A higher hypocrisy could never have been fathomed." He sighed.

Jack pointed his staff at Pitch, bewildered. What did he mean by that?

"In the name-" Pitch rubbed his hairless brow and looked exasperated. "Frost," said Pitch with a great patience, "he fights the monster under the bed with  _whips_.  _Glowing golden whips and chains._ "

Jack waited for him to elaborate, but when Pitch continued to stare at him as if that statement should clear everything up, he hesitantly queried, "Well, they're pretty effective, right?"

Pitch's mouth dropped open. And then he turned on his heel and walked away. "I refuse. I refuse to educate you on this, Jack. Go ask one of your precious Guardians."

"Hey-" shouted Jack, ready to demand for answers, but suddenly the shadows engulfed Pitch, leaving only the lingering remnant of his voice.

_"Nope nope nope nope."_


End file.
